Thankfully, last week’s explosion and fire at California’s second largest refinery, Chevron’s El Segundo plant, was not an environmental catastrophe. But it could have serious economic and political impact.

It occurred as Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democratic figures were in the midst of a 180-degree political pirouette: a shift from denouncing makers of gasoline as price gouging polluters, to beseeching them to continue production.

California once had dozens of refineries, but today nine are still producing gasoline, diesel fuel and jet fuel for airlines and military warplanes. Two have announced plans to shut down within a few months.

Valero’s refinery and the Phillips 66 plant in Southern California together represent about 17% of the state’s refining capacity, according to the Cali

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